_{Very true, and a very good article.}

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<sub>...back to lurking.

Estoy aprendiendo español
Por favor, tenme paciencia...</sub>

Rediscover your mind!
Must be still somewhere there inside your head!

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• admin of =The-Yard-Collective Street Photography Club
...a cool place to see life as it is.

I would add that it is unwise to imitate yourself, too. There are a lot of image makers who have struck upon something that works well for them, and they endlessly repeat it. That's not creativity. That's replication.

I don't think I have seen anyone trying to copy my style. Either I'm too crap to bother copying, or I don't have an identifiable style, or my stuff is so random no-one could copy it!

Very well said.

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Fear.

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I completely agree with you... Art is a form of catharsis... You can free yourself only by being YOU and expressing your own perspectives on life!

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Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Enjoy my gallery [link]

good article Mike, cheers

A great article with great points. i'm inspired!

I think its not bad to try and copy something u like.Bad is trying to present it as something that you own.A teacher of mine said to me :''What do you want to do?Something original?It will never happen!Almost everything you think of,has been done in photography,but the important part is how YOU see it!''
So even if someone tries to imitate something its good!Trying to do something you like will give you another perspective of things and maybe u can combine with your own style in the future.We all keep the things we like in our head and the mix of it all defines our opinion about things!''Bad imitation'' for me,is when someone has no creativity and tries to make a clone...

Inspiration is a trigger that sparks the artist. We can be inspired by events, surroundings, people, words, other artworks and thoughts, if your artwork reflects that inspiration this is not a bad thing, but if you copy exactly the very thing that inspired you this is just mimicry and is not original nor can it teach you anything. Sometimes we need to replicate others for practice, that is not a bad thing, when we add our own originallity and style, thoughts, feelings and point of view into the work then it becomes ours...a piece to perhaps inspire others.
If you are good at what you do, you will know it as soon as someone else copies you, after all no one copies crap, right?
When i was learning to compose music, I would try to listen and then recreate what i had heard just so I could understand its structure, form, flow and appeal, with photography it was the same, now I find that I try to be original but with millions of people all aiming cameras and every damn thing and uploading those images into every photo sharing site there is, then its hard to be original, almost impossible. But what I try to do is make my interpretation original, the angle original, the color balance original, the process original. That way it becomes mine. Hopefully for others to copy.
For me nothing is more boring than repetitive technique in artwork, there should be progress, new experiments (even if they are a little brave) this way the artist can always improve and become more versatile in their presentations and can present pieces depending on mood at time in a much better way.
Has Aris's =aR-Ka teacher said "What do you want to do? Something original? It will never happen!Almost everything you think of,has been done in photography,but the important part is how YOU see it!"
I think that sums it all up the best.

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Well said!

Copying up to a certain point might be acceptable, but sooner or later you should simply start developing an own style.

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On pirun vaikea selvitä hengissä hautaan saakka... - Erno Paasilinna

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